William H. Crown, PhD, is President of the health care economics and late phase research businesses within OptumInsight Life Sciences. Dr. Crown came to OptumInsight after spending more than a decade at Thompson Reuters Medstat, where he was Vice President of Outcomes Research and Econometrics in the Research and Pharmaceutical Division. From 1982-1995, Dr. Crown was a faculty member at the Florence Heller Graduate School, Brandeis University, where he taught graduate courses in statistics and conducted research on the economics of aging and long-term care policy. He was Director of Policy Studies in the Policy Center on Aging from 1989-95, and Faculty Chair of the Heller School from 1992-93. He received his doctorate degree in urban and regional studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a master of arts in economics from Boston University. The author of two books and co-author of two others, Dr. Crown has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and other scholarly papers. Known for his early application of sample selection bias models in the pharmaceutical outcomes research literature, he is a frequent speaker on pharmaceutical economics and econometric methodology at professional meetings and conferences. In addition to his management role within OptumInsight Life Sciences, Dr. Crown is Chair of the OptumInsight Fellows Program and a UHG Innovation Champion. In these latter roles, he applies his expertise in statistical methodology to a wide variety of problems in health care--ranging from the design of comparative effectiveness research studies to the evaluation of disease management programs.

Dr. Crown has been a member of ISPOR since 1998 and has served on numerous ISPOR Task Forces over the years including the ISPOR Task Force on Retrospective Databases, ISPOR Task Force on Real World Data (Economic Subgroup), and the ISPOR Task Force on Good Research Practices for Retrospective Database Analysis. He has also served on the ISPOR Institutional Council since 2004 and taught ISPOR Short Courses on retrospective database analysis at both the ISPOR Annual International Meetings and ISPOR Annual European Congresses.

ISPOR Vision Statement by William H. Crown, PhD

With its Vision 2020 effort, ISPOR leadership has placed considerable emphasis on charting ISPOR’s path for the next decade. However, when I think about how ISPOR has evolved over the years, I am particularly struck by its emergence as a truly global organization. ISPOR has experienced remarkable growth since it was established in 1995 - from a few hundred initial members to nearly 11,000 (including the ISPOR Regional Chapter members) in 2012. In the past two years, attendance at the European Congress has outpaced the International Meeting held in North America and attendance at ISPOR regional conferences in Asia and Latin America (on a rotating bi-annual basis) have grown.

There is tremendous benefit to the sharing of experiences among ISPOR members with respect to national policy initiatives in our respective countries. I suspect that many of my non-US colleagues have been amused at the focus on ‘comparative effectiveness research’ (CER) in the United States. The emphasis of CER on real world evidence regarding treatment effectiveness and safety extending beyond just drugs to surgery, behavioral health, disease management, health care organization, and more looks a great deal like the emergence of health technology assessment (HTA) in Australia, Canada, and Northern Europe 20 years ago.

Many of the new treatments being developed by biopharmaceutical and medical device companies have the potential to save lives and improve the quality of life for countless patients. But the challenge of managing spiraling health care costs continues to grow. ISPOR’s focus upon the science and methodologies needed to generate high quality evidence to inform decision-making by physicians, patients, regulatory bodies, payer organizations, and other health care stakeholders positions the organization to have a tremendous impact on the lives of patients and the future path of health care. I am passionate about this focus and would love the opportunity to work with all of you to continue to develop the impact of ISPOR on health care around the world.

Marcus Wilson, PharmD, is President of HealthCore, WellPoint's wholly owned research subsidiary, which he co-founded in 1996. He has been extensively involved in health economics, outcomes and epidemiologic research for more than 17 years. While on faculty at the University of Sciences in Philadelphia in the early 1990's, he led efforts at Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of Delaware to evolve the drug formulary development process from the traditional pharmacy and therapeutics (P&T) approach to a broader health outcomes management process that incorporated comparative effectiveness research endpoints, including value-based assessments, and disease management pull-through programs into the decision-making process. It was during this time that Dr. Wilson helped develop clinical trials, outcomes research and patient education programs within a division of BCBS Delaware which was purchased from BCBS in 1996 and used as the foundation of HealthCore.

Dr. Wilson received his Bachelor of Science in biochemistry from Virginia Tech and his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the Medical College of Virginia. He joined the faculty of the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP) after completing his residency in family medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina and spent seven years with USP in a didactic and experiential training role for doctor of pharmacy students.

In addition to his role as President of HealthCore, Dr. Wilson serves as member of the FDA Mini-Sentinel Program's Project Operations Council, the Brookings Active Safety Surveillance Council (BASIC), the eHealth Initiative Board of Directors, the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) Executive Board and the Board of Visitors for the Mayes College of Health Care Business & Policy at the University of Sciences in Philadelphia. He is a past member of the ISPOR Board of Directors (2003-2006) and serves on the ISPOR Vision 2020 Strategic Plan Task Force. He is also a reviewer for multiple scientific journals. His publications, including book chapters, span various clinical, health care safety and health outcomes topics.

ISPOR Vision Statement by Marcus Wilson, PharmD

We are at a unique point in the evolution of health care systems globally. Health care related costs are continuing to escalate at an alarming rate; new payment models are shifting risks and modifying incentives; and health information technologies are rapidly evolving and changing information flow and data availability. In addition, real world outcomes, including quality and total cost of care, are taking center stage as a means to solve the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between increasing access and improving quality while controlling costs. Within this evolution, the health economics and outcomes research community is in a very unique and highly valued position, in part due to the vision and leadership of ISPOR. Since its founding in 1995, ISPOR has taken great strides towards achieving the mission to increase the efficiency, effectiveness and fairness of health care decisions. It has become a nexus for global stakeholders to meet, share ideas, discuss concerns and derive solutions to some of our most pressing issues.

Though collectively we have made tremendous progress over the last two decades, much still remains to be done to improve research methods, enhance access to high quality data, accelerate evidence generation and its incorporation into decisions and cultivate and expand a high quality workforce. As costs and quality of care concerns continue to mount and apprehensions around the lack of generalizability of traditional clinical trials results grow, health care decision makers are increasingly demanding more and better information on new and existing technologies that facilitates decisions that result in improved quality, safety and total cost of care in their population. Similarly, payers and providers are progressing toward new outcomes-based reimbursement models that will be dependent upon the accurate and timely assessment of clinical, economic and humanistic endpoint.

ISPOR is well situated to continue its significant contribution to the construct of the fundamental frameworks for the transition to outcomes-based health care systems across the globe. We will do so through multiple means including facilitating the dissemination of knowledge, encouraging innovation and new methods development and fostering cross-stakeholder collaborations.

The future is bright for our industry. As the primary society for health economics and outcomes research, ISPOR is ideally positioned to serve as a critical catalyst for continued change and improvements in the means by which outcomes of care are predicted, measured and disseminated for decision support. It would be my honor to lead you as president for a portion of this journey and contribute my experiences from within the research, payer, academic and health care delivery systems to the broader vision of ISPOR.s

Jan Busschbach, PhD is a Professor of Health Related Quality of Life and the Head of the Department for Medical Psychology of the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam. He is also the Managing Director of the Viersprong Institute for Studies on Personality Disorders (VISPD). He received his training in health economics at the Institute for Medical Technology Assessment (iMTA) in Rotterdam, and has been the General Director of that Institute from 1999 till 2002. His main research topic is the integration of health related quality of life outcomes into cost effectiveness analysis. He also has a special interest in the operationalization of arguments other than cost effectiveness arguments in health technology assessment (HTA), such as distributional and ethical considerations.

Currently, Dr. Busschbach is the Chair of the EuroQoL Foundation and member of the committee that advises the Dutch Health Care Insurance Board on reimbursement of new drugs (CFH). In close collaboration with clinical researchers, he has been working on health economic studies in a broad range of medical disciplines, such as endocrinology, nephrology, dermatology, oncology, urology, infectious disease, rehabilitation, and psychiatry.

ISPOR Vision Statement by Jan Busschbach, PhD

A gap exists between state-of-the-art health economic / health technology assessment (HTA) research and actual reimbursement decision making; and this gap is wider than the gap between clinical research and reimbursement decisions. It is possible that health economics and outcomes research have become sophisticated too fast to catch up. Or could it be that health economics and HTA cannot satisfy the needs of decision makers: even a state-of-the-art and valid cost effectiveness analysis may not necessarily be a decisive argument in reimbursements decisions. On the one hand I would therefore plea for support of the ISPOR efforts to provide accessible education and information especially targeted at the decision makers. On the other hand, ISPOR should stimulate the awareness among researchers that health economics and HTA are, in the end, tools for decision makers, and that researchers should find ways to provide the warranted information for decision makers in a comprehensive way. Providing a stimulating environment for debate between decision makers on the one side and researchers and industry on the other is, in my opinion, an effective way to overcome the gap. Providing such a stimulating environment for debate is a strong ISPOR asset, although the voice of the decision makers has been louder in the past. Stimulating the participation of decision makers in the ISPOR community would be my goal for 2012-2014.

Gérard de Pouvourville, PhD, is presently Chair Professor for Health Economics at ESSEC Business School, one of the three major business schools in France. Formerly, he has led a career as a researcher in the field of health care economics and management, at Ecole Polytechnique, at the French National School of Public Health and at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM). His main contributions have dealt with hospital funding and management, physician payment scheme, health technology assessment and pharmacoeconomics, and health policy. He is a member of the EUROQOL group and has published the French tariff for the EQ-5D questionnaire. He has been on the editorial board of the European Journal of Health Economics (EJHE).

Dr. de Pouvourville is the former Chairman of the French Health Economists College and is currently Vice President. He has been Vice President of the National Observatory for the Prescription and Usage of Drugs, from 2000 to 2003, and has been a scientific advisor to the French Ministry of Health on hospital funding systems and reforms for the past twenty years. He also sits on the Scientific Committee for the French National Sickness Fund. He is a consultant for major pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. de Pouvourville has published articles in EJHE, Value in Health, International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, and other medical journals. He has edited two books on prospective payment schemes for hospitals with Professor John Kimberly, University of Pennsylvania, and Thomas D'Aunno, from Columbia University together with books in French on international comparisons of health care systems and initiation to health economics. In 2009, Dr. de Pouvourville was Research Review Committee Co-Chair for the ISPOR 12th Annual European Congress in Paris, France. Currently he is a member of the ISPOR Performance-Based Risk-Sharing Agreements Good Research Practices Task Force.

ISPOR Vision Statement by Gérard de Pouvourville, PhD

As a health economist, I am particularly impressed by the achievements of ISPOR since its founding and as such honoured to have been nominated as a Director candidate. Amongst ISPOR activities, its capacity to bring together scholars, business representatives, public and private payers, to discuss methodological issues and define good practices for health technology assessment is what I appreciate most. Having been involved in the preparation of the ISPOR 12th Annual European Congress in Paris, France, I have also come to know its organisational skills and strong requirements for quality. Finally, ISPOR is now the largest international forum around health technology assessment. This being said, how can I contribute to ISPOR as a Director? First, concerning Europe, there are still major differences in approaches to the use of health economics in public decision making around access to new technologies; nevertheless, there are signs of convergence between national models around the role of health economics. To me, ISPOR seems to be a place to contribute to this convergence, through debates in ISPOR Task Forces, and in the organization of plenary sessions and issues panels during the Annual European Congress. Second, as I am very much involved in the French Health Economist Association, where I hold the position of Vice-President, being a Director at ISPOR is for me the opportunity to increase interactions between French scholars and also decision makers and the international community. Third, to broaden my scope, I am quite eager to contribute to the strengthening of younger chapters, in particular in the Asia Pacific region, where my school, ESSEC, is developing both teaching and research in health economics.

Marcelo Fonseca, MD, has a Master's Degree in Health Economics and Management, and is the current Vice Chief of Staff of the Dean of the Federal University of São Paulo (2009 - present). Dr. Fonseca is a Professor in the Medical and Health Technologies School at the Federal University of São Paulo where he teaches courses to undergraduate and graduate students in health technology assessment, clinical research and pediatrics (2005- present). He is the head of the Women's Health Technology Assessment Center at the Federal University of São Paulo (2011 - present). He is the founder, first CEO and now member of the Board of Directors of the Clinical Trials Office of Federal University of São Paulo, where more than 500 clinical trials take place every year (academic, government and industry sponsored trials). In the past he has worked as Medical Manager, Product Manager and Group Product Manager of Oncology and Hematology products (1997 - 2000), Latin American Leader for Hematology (1999 - 2001) and Business Unit Director responsible for market access, health economics and clinical trials (2000 - 2003) at Hoffmann La Roche Inc (Brazil).

Dr. Fonseca obtained his Medical Degree at the aforementioned University (1984 - 1989), and is a specialist in pediatrics and pediatric critical care medicine, has his own pediatric practice and is staff physician at several major hospitals in São Paulo, including the Albert Einstein Israeli Hospital. He received his Master's Degree in Health Economics and Management at Federal University of São Paulo (2002 - 2004). Presently, he is a PhD student in sciences.

In 2003, he founded Axia.Bio Consulting, the first consulting company in Brazil specialized in health economics and outcomes research and also one of the first HTA companies in Latin America. His research production and publication in national and international peer-reviewed journals is concentrated in health technology assessment, health economic evaluations and in pediatric critical care medicine.

Dr. Fonseca has served ISPOR in various capacities in the last several years. He is the Education Director of the ISPOR Brazil Chapter (2006 - present), the first Latin America ISPOR Chapter, of which he was one of the founders (2006). He has acted on the organizing committee of the 1st and 2nd ISPOR Brazil Chapter Congress and is the Chair-elect of the ISPOR Latin America Consortium Distance Learning Committee. He was also a reviewer for the Portuguese translation of Health Care Cost, Quality, and Outcomes: ISPOR Book of Terms.

ISPOR Vision Statement by Marcelo Fonseca, MD

I am really honored to serve as a Director candidate for the ISPOR Board of Directors. Health systems around the world are being re-thought, adjusted and affected by the necessary changes to accommodate ever increasing health care costs with finite availability of funding resources. Thus, health technology assessment (HTA) continues to gain importance around the world. ISPOR, as the leading society dealing with HTA and outcomes research, should act as a catalyst of such changes, using the experience and diversity of its members to offer and provide a balanced view of many health care policies around the globe and their possible changes. To this end, I propose to support ISPOR in the following ways: 1 - to foster partnerships with other professional societies (e.g., physicians, pharmacists, health service auditors, economists), service providers (e.g., hospitals and diagnostic services) and payers, similar to what the ISPOR Brazil Chapter has done in recent years; 2 - to provide a forum to conduct open discussions among the participants in this market, including patients, through representative groups / associations; 3 - to encourage our members to use their expertise not only to produce data and evidence, but also to effectively engage in decision making in their markets; 4 to maintain and strengthen the scientific rigor of HTA activities around the world, primarily through the dissemination of good practice guidelines; 5 - to stimulate the entry of new members and foster their education, as I have been promoting throughout my career, not only through graduate courses but also through internships with health care providers, industry and government; 6 - to maintain one of the most outstanding features of this Society, which is theability to listen to their members; 7 - to support the growth and consolidation of the ISPOR Latin America Consortium and the ISPOR Regional Chapters. I believe I can continue to significantly serve ISPOR in achieving its mission, by striving to make the above proposed actions happen, by serving as a strong representative of the Latin America region on the ISPOR Board of Directors and by bringing reality to the diversity and multicultural character of this organization.

Yajaira Bastardo, PhD, is Professor of Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmacy Administration at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela.
She also teaches graduate courses in pharmacoeconomics for the Sanitary Surveillance of Medicines Program of the National Health Institute “Rafael Rangel” in Caracas, Venezuela and in the Master of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of the Valley of Guatemala, Guatemala City.

She received her BSc (Pharmacy) degree from the Central University of Venezuela and in 2001 she completed a PhD in Pharmacy Health Care Administration at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.

Dr. Bastardo has served the School of Pharmacy as Administrative Director (2010-11), Chair of Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmacy Administration, Coordinator of the Health Care Program, Chair of Applied Microbiology, and Coordinator of the Applied Microbiology Program. She has conducted research and published in health outcomes research. Her primary research interests include quality of life, health-care decision making and pharmacoeconomics.

I am really honored to be nominated for this Director position on the ISPOR Board of Directors. Founding members envisioned ISPOR as a truly international, multi-disciplinary professional membership society which advances the policy, science, and practice of health outcomes research. In less than two decades, ISPOR has become the most important international association in the fields of health economics and outcomes research with more than 50 ISPOR Regional Chapters and a presence around the world.

ISPOR, with a membership trained in multiple disciplines, working in different environments, and responsible for conducting research or translating that research into informed health care decisions and policies around the world is well-suited to take advantage of the opportunities and challenges for outcomes research that globalization of the economic crisis and health care is offering.

As a pharmacoeconomics professor and heath care professional from Latin America, I am strongly committed to the ISPOR mission. Over the recent years, I've had the privilege of contributing to ISPOR activities in Latin America and I am looking forward to continuing to foster excellence in pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research within in the region and abroad.

Kenneth KC Lee MPhil, PhD, is Professor of Pharmacy and Head of Pharmacy, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University, Malaysia. Before he moved to Malaysia, he was Professor and Associate Director (External Affairs) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) School of Pharmacy where he was one of the founding members and had subsequently worked for 18 years.

Dr. Lee received his pharmacy undergraduate training from the University of Washington in Seattle. His subsequent higher qualifications were from the CUHK and the University of Oxford, UK.

He is widely recognised as one of the pioneers in pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research in Asia focusing on comparative effectiveness research, health technology assessment and healthcare policy development. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed international journals. He has been the Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Economics since 2006 and is serving on the editorial board of a number of international journals including Value in Health. He is also Adjunct Professor of School of Pharmacy, the CUHK; Honorary Professor of School of Public Health, the University of Hong Kong; and was visiting Professor of University of London School of Pharmacy from 2008-11.

Dr. Lee has served in a number of positions in ISPOR. He was the major driving force and later a founding member of the first ISPOR regional consortium - ISPOR Asia Consortium which was established in 2004. He served as chair of the Consortium from 2006-8. Before this, he also spearheaded and became the founding chair of the first ISPOR regional chapter in Asia - ISPOR Hong Kong Chapter in 1999. He was a member of the organizing committees of several ISPOR Asia Pacific Conferences from 2004-2011. He had also taught in a number of ISPOR short courses. Currently he is chair of the ISPOR Asia Consortium Publication Committee, and he has recently been appointed as Co-Editor of Value in Health Regional Issue.

ISPOR Vision Statement by Kenneth KC Lee BSc(Pharmacy) MPhil, PhD

Ever since its inception 15 years ago, ISPOR has been working unfailingly towards improving and engaging with stakeholders in the discipline of health economics and outcomes research. The achievements have been unanimously regarded as highly successful by all standards. But we are in no position for complacence. I see the next 15 years as being even more challenging yet more rewarding for ISPOR due to the high speed at which health technologies are advancing and all the upcoming healthcare reforms in different jurisdictions all over the world. Our Society is in the best position to ride on these opportunities to further enhance the science of outcomes research with the ultimate objective of translating the science into practical and useful information for all stakeholders. ISPOR should keep its far-reaching vision as an international Society thus strengthening the link among the audience across nations and cultural backgrounds. As the largest and most recognised organization in the field, I see another major responsibility of ISPOR in nurturing scientists of the next generation to ensure a more advanced and more efficient system of healthcare delivery in the next few decades. My academic background in research and education over the last 25 years, together with my extensive international experience will definitely help me to serve all ISPOR members more comprehensively.

Jawahar S. Bapna, MD, PhD, is Director, Jaipur College of Pharmacy and Emeritus Professor, SMS Medical College, Jaipur, India. He trained at National Institutes of Health (NIH), Washington, DC, and Karolinska Institute, Sweden and has over 35 years of academic experience involving teaching and clinical research. He led the team conducting clinical trials and bioequivalence studies in various institutions in Delhi and Pondicherry. He has been a member of various committees of the government including Indian Pharmacopeia Committee and the Essential Drugs Committee. Working with the WHO-India Essential Drugs Program, he developed the Medicines Policy in various states of India. He has served on the faculties of Delhi, Rajasthan, Pondicherry and Madras Universities. He has been the President of Indian Pharmacological Society.

Dr. Bapna has presented his work at several local, national, and international conferences and has 72 peer-reviewed publications, including articles in Value in Health,Pharmacoeconomics, Lancet, Health Policy and Planning, and more. He contributed to WHO’s Guide to Good Prescribing, their bestselling book published in more than dozen languages. has received numerous awards for his work and has been an invited lecturer in the Asia, United States and Europe. He has worked on research projects specializing in the development medicines policies for promotion of rational use of drugs and improved access at low cost to the people with WHO, World Bank, EU, Futures Group, and more. He has been a member of the Strategies for Enhancing Access to Medicines Program (SEAM) team of the Management Sciences for Health (MSH) that works on ‘targeting improved access to medicines’.

Dr. Bapna is an active member of ISPOR since 2006 and has been participating in various International and regional meetings of the ISPOR since 1998. He is Secretary of the ISPOR India Chapter and conducted various national meeting on health economics and outcomes research and patient reported outcomes research in India from 2006. He is also a member of the Asia Consortium Executive Committee.

ISPOR Vision Statement by Jawahar S. Bapna, MD, PhD

The mission of ISPOR (at a local level) is: to provide an environment for knowledge sharing among researchers, health care practitioners and decision makers interested in pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research; to serve as a bridge in bringing together (Indian) researchers, health care practitioners, and decision makers interested in pharmacoeconomics and members of pharmaceutical industry, health-related organizations, and academia; to act as a resource at a local level for individuals including students interested in pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research; and to provide an opportunity for members to become more familiar with the activities of ISPOR as well as participate in its activities.

With a growing international presence through regional meetings and interest groups, ISPOR is a focal point for decision making on costs and outcomes of health care interventions. With particular interest in regulatory affairs, ISPOR contributes to the growing efforts to maintain and improve access to effective medical treatments blending the interests of all stakeholders in health care decisions. Through dissemination channels, particularly annual and regional meetings and the widely read journal, Value in Health, important policy and methodological issues can be shared. ISPOR Task Forces provide a collaborative arena for considering issues and offering potential solutions. Workshops, forums, and plenary sessions at ISPOR meetings keep the current problems and solutions in front of our constituency.

Zoltán Kaló, MSc, MD, PhD, is Director of the Health Economics Research Centre, Department of Health Policy and Health Economics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. He has more than 15 years of international experience in academia and industry, specializing in health systems design, health technology assessment, outcomes research, economic modeling and strategic pricing of health care technologies. He is a founding member and President-elect of the Hungarian Health Economics Association, Board Member of the Hungarian Society of Personalized Medicine and of the Hungarian Medical Professional College in Health Care Management and Health Economics, and a member of many international scientific organizing committees.

Dr. Kaló holds an MD and a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Semmelweis University, an MSc in Health Economics from the University of York, and a Dr. Habil in Sociology from Eötvös Loránd University. He is a director of post-graduate programs in pharmaceutical policy and pharmacoeconomics, and in health policy, planning and financing; his research has been widely presented and published in leading journals, and he serves as a policy advisor to global health care corporations, public decision makers and the European Commission. Dr. Kaló is the founder and CEO of Syreon Research Institute, an international research corporation specializing in health economic modeling and technology assessment.

Dr. Kaló is an active member of ISPOR and ISPOR Chapter Hungary President-elect. He contributed to several events and forums of the Society, especially in Central and Eastern Europe.

His most recent research is related to the allocation and efficiency of health care financing and implementation of local and international health care and industrial policies, with special focus on middle income countries and emerging economies.

ISPOR Vision Statement by Zoltán Kaló, MSc, MD, PhD

The tremendous success of ISPOR is proof of the need for an international multidisciplinary organization to advance the policy, science and practice of health outcomes research. I fully support the vision and mission of the Society, and I am honored to be a candidate for an ISPOR Director position.

Several high-income countries in Western Europe, North America and Asia Pacific regions have been successful in implementing the mission of ISPOR to improve global health through facilitating evidence-based decisions. Because of the lower health status and more limited resources for health care of their population, the implementation of evidence-based health policy in middle income countries has been less successful. In these countries there is still enormous room to promote local outcomes research, to build capacity in the multiple disciplines of outcomes research, to facilitate discussions among key stakeholders and to communicate results of research to policy-makers more efficiently. There are reasonable differences between high-income and middle income countries, especially in the availability of local data, financial and human resources for outcomes research, the relative price level of new health technologies, and finally in the culture of transparent decision making. These differences need to be taken into account in the future scientific and organizational development of ISPOR and the society has already made important steps into this direction by establishing regional chapters, facilitating regional congresses and launching the new journal, Value in Health Regional Issues.

Regardless of the outcome of my candidacy I am dedicated to support the implementation of ISPOR VISION 2020 with special focus on middle income countries.

Karina Jahnz-Rozyk, MD, PhD, is a Professor and an expert in the fields of allergology and clinical immunology with a diploma in medicine received from the Medical University, Warsaw, Poland. Dr. Jahnz-Rozyk's academic degrees and scientific titles include a doctoral degree and habilitation (postdoctoral) degree in allergology. Since 2003, she is the Head of Department of Allergology and Clinical Immunology at the Military Institute of Medicine. In 2002 she was nominated a Professor in Allergology and Pneumonology. She is an active member of the Polish Society of Allergology, European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology, European Respiratory Society. Since 2003 she has been a member of the Polish Society of Pharmacoeconomics (ISPOR Poland Chapter) and in 2009-2012 she has served as President of the Society. She is the author and co-author of 330 publications. She supervised 22 clinical trials (II&III phases) in the areas of respiratory and allergic diseases. Her scope of interest in pharmacoeconomics covers costs of diseases, particularly in chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (i.e. COPD and asthma) with a focus on outcomes research (e.g. clinical trials (RCT) and HRQoL). Her efforts focus on advocating for strengthening the relations between clinical and economic effectiveness. As the President of the Society she broadened her interest in the management of the public health care system in Poland and therefore she joined the Economic Commission at the Ministry of Health, the main goal of which is to implement the current and novel reimbursement system in Poland. Furthermore she is the organizer of the Annual International Conference of Polish Society of Pharmacoeconomics. During her presidency she has actively participated in conferences, meetings and forums of the ISPOR European Chapters as well as contributing to the successful efforts in the promotion of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research science in Poland. During the term of her service as the ISPOR Poland Chapter President, guidelines for pharmacoeconomics analysis were updated. She is also the co-editor of the Polish translation of Health Care Cost, Quality, and Outcomes: ISPOR Book of Terms. She also served as the editor in chief of the PTFE ethics code inspired by ISPOR achievements.

ISPOR Vision Statement by Karina Jahnz-Rozyk, MD, PhD

In my view the mission of ISPOR is to increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and fairness of health care use to improve health. The ISPOR vision is to make the society recognized globally as the persuasive authority for outcomes research and its use in health care decisions towards improved health. The ISPOR scope and sphere of influence includes outcomes researchers, health technology developers and assessors, regulators, health economists, health care policy makers, payers, providers, patients, populations, and the society as a whole.

If chosen as a member of the ISPOR Board of Directors I commit myself to my vision of ISPOR which includes the following activities: 1) execution of ISPOR mission in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, 2) facilitation of the introduction of novel mechanisms in the process of the registration of drugs and their assessment by health technology assessment agencies as well as their reimbursement and availability to patients in middle income countries, 3) strengthening the role of ISPOR with educational activities in the fields of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research in middle income countries, 4) contribute to the creation of a forum to facilitate the interchange of scientific knowledge in pharmacoeconomics / health economics and patient health outcomes, and encourage communications among the research community, health care professionals, and other research, regulatory, and educational groups, including communications with media and the general public by educating public and private agencies on the usefulness of research in pharmacoeconomic and patient outcomes assessment, 5) facilitate the translation of ISPOR publications into the languages of individual countries with ISPOR Regional Chapters, 6) facilitate pharmacovigilance research of new drugs in particular ( e.g. biological, biosimilar).

I wish to express my strong belief that my Vision for ISPOR will contribute to the development of the Society.